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This study argues that concepts of nation, nationalism, national ideology and identity did exist in Ireland in the 13th and 14th centuries, and that the Irish people used the concept of nation especially in response to foreigness or foreigners. Thomas Finan examines Bardic poetry, settlement patterns, the organisational nature of the Church and evidence from the medieval legal system to discern the ways in which people used and conceived of ideas of nationalism. The study demonstrates that this concept of nation was not based on political structure, but on ethnic descent and the relationship between an ethnically-linked group and a given geographical area. The modern debate over nationalism is also reviewed.

Many Irish scholars, known as 'peregrini', arrived in Continental Europe in the early Middle Ages making a significant cultural impact. This edited collection of brand new essays brings together some of the world's leading experts in the field who synthesise major critical developments, and offer exciting new perspectives on the Irish peregrini.

This book opens up discussion on the liturgical music of medieval Ireland by approaching it from a multidisciplinary, European perspective. In so doing, it challenges received notions of an idiosyncratic 'Celtic Rite', and of the prevailing view that no manuscripts with music notation have survived from the medieval Irish Church. This is due largely to a preoccupation by earlier scholars with pre-Norman Gaelic culture, to the neglect of wider networks of engagement between Ireland, Britain, and continental Europe. In adopting a more inclusive approach, a different view emerges which demonstrates the diversity and international connectedness of Irish ecclesiastical culture throughout the long Middle Ages, in both musico-liturgical and other respects. The contributors represent a variety of specialisms, including musicology, liturgiology, palaeography, hagiology, theology, church history, Celtic studies, French studies, and Latin. From this rich range of perspectives they investigate the evidence for Irish musical and liturgical practices from the earliest surviving sources with chant texts to later manuscripts with music notation, as well as exploring the far-reaching cultural impact of the Irish church in medieval Europe through case studies of liturgical offices in honour of Irish saints, and of saints traditionally associated with Ireland in different parts of Europe.

Brian Boru is the most famous Irish person before the modern era, whose death at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 is one of the few events in the whole of Ireland’s medieval history to retain a place in the popular imagination. Once, we were told that Brian, the great Christian king, gave his life in a battle on Good Friday against pagan Viking enemies whose defeat banished them from Ireland forever. More recent interpretations of the Battle of Clontarf have played down the role of the Vikings and portrayed it as merely the final act in a rebellion against Brian, the king of Munster, by his enemies in Leinster and Dublin. This book proposes a far-reaching reassessment of Brian Boru and Clontarf. By examining Brian’s family history and tracing his career from its earliest days, it uncovers the origins of Brian’s greatness and explains precisely how he changed Irish political life forever. Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf offers a new interpretation of the role of the Vikings in Irish affairs and explains how Brian emerged from obscurity to attain the high-kingship of Ireland because of his exploitation of the Viking presence. And it concludes that Clontarf was deemed a triumph, despite Brian’s death, because of what he averted – a major new Viking offensive in Ireland – on that fateful day.

Medieval Ireland is often described as a backward-looking nation in which change only came about as a result of foreign invasions. By examining the wealth of under-explored evidence available, Downham challenges this popular notion and demonstrates what a culturally rich and diverse place medieval Ireland was. Starting in the fifth century, when St Patrick arrived on the island, and ending in the fifteenth century, with the efforts of the English government to defend the lands which it ruled directly around Dublin by building great ditches, this up-to-date and accessible survey charts the internal changes in the region. Chapters dispute the idea of an archaic society in a wide-range of areas, with a particular focus on land-use, economy, society, religion, politics and culture. This concise and accessible overview offers a fresh perspective on Ireland in the Middle Ages and overthrows many enduring stereotypes.

Modern sensibilities have clouded historical views of slavery, perhaps more so than any other medieval social institution. Anachronistic economic rationales and notions about the progression of European civilisation have immeasurably distorted our view of slavery in the medieval context. As a result historians have focussed their efforts upon explaining the disappearance of this medieval institution rather than seeking to understand it. This book highlights the extreme cultural/social significance of slavery for the societies of medieval Britain and Ireland c. 800-1200. Concentrating upon the lifestyle, attitudes and motivations of the slave-holders and slave-raiders, it explores the violent activities and behavioural codes of Britain and Ireland s warrior-centred societies, illustrating the extreme significance of the institution of slavery for constructions of power, ethnic identity and gender.

This volume offers fresh perspectives on the political, military, religious, social, cultural, intellectual, economic, and environmental history of early modern Ireland and situates these discussions in global and comparative contexts. The opening chapters focus on 'Politics' and 'Religion and War' and offer a chronological narrative, informed by the re-interpretation of new archives. The remaining chapters are more thematic, with chapters on 'Society', 'Culture', and 'Economy and Environment', and often respond to wider methodologies and historiographical debates. Interdisciplinary cross-pollination - between, on the one hand, history and, on the other, disciplines like anthropology, archaeology, geography, computer science, literature and gender and environmental studies - informs many of the chapters. The volume offers a range of new departures by a generation of scholars who explain in a refreshing and accessible manner how and why people acted as they did in the transformative and tumultuous years between 1550 and 1730.

This book examines the evolution of mills - whether powered by water, wind, animals or humans - during an important era of English history. It focuses not only on the structures themselves, but also on the people who acted as entrepreneurs, workers, and customers for the industry. Together they created one of the most recognizable and enduring features of medieval society.

This volume discusses infirmitas (‘infirmity’ or ‘weakness’) in ancient and medieval societies. It concentrates on the cultural, social and domestic aspects of physical and mental illness, impairment and health, and also examines frailty as a more abstract, cultural construct. It seeks to widen our understanding of how physical and mental well-being and weakness were understood and constructed in the longue durée from antiquity to the Middle Ages. The chapters are written by experts from a variety of disciplines, including archaeology, art history and philology, and pay particular attention to the differences of experience due to gender, age and social status. The book opens with chapters on the more theoretical aspects of pre-modern infirmity and disability, moving on to discuss different types of mental and cultural infirmities, including those with positive connotations, such as medieval stigmata. The last section of the book discusses infirmity in everyday life from the perspective of healing, medicine and care.

The second edition of Steven Ellis's formidable work represents not only a survey, but also a critique of traditional perspectives on the making of modern Ireland. It explores Ireland both as a frontier society divided between English and Gaelic worlds, and also as a problem of government within the wider Tudor state. This edition includes two major new chapters: the first extending the coverage back a generation, to assess the impact on English Ireland of the crisis of lordship that accompanied the Lancastrian collapse in France and England; and the second greatly extending the material on the Gaelic response to Tudor expansion.

Few would doubt the central importance of the nation in the making and unmaking of modern political communities. The long history of 'the nation' as a concept and as a name for various sorts of 'imagined community' likewise commands such acceptance. But when did the nation first become a fundamental political factor? This is a question which has been, and continues to be, far more sharply contested. A deep rift still separates 'modernist' perspectives, which view the political nation as a phenomenon limited to modern, industrialised societies, from the views of scholars concerned with the pre-industrial world who insist, often vehemently, that nations were central to pre-modern political life also. This 2005 book engages with these questions by drawing on the expertise of leading medieval, early modern and modern historians.

This book examines the evidence for medieval parks in Anglo-Norman Ireland. It is the first book on the subject and concentrates on the parks documented in the period 1169 to c.1350. Drawing on archaeological fieldwork, historical and place-name evidence, the book generates a broad understanding of the role of parks in medieval society. It stresses the importance of the landscape and of the deer, cattle, and timber within it as integral aspects of the material culture of high medieval Ireland. The research is underpinned by extensive fieldwork, which has identified surviving park features in the landscape. Key topics explored include the form and function of medieval parks, their occurrence and location in the landscape, the status and identity of their owners, and a comparison with parks elsewhere. Notably, the evidence suggests that both parks and fallow deer were relatively uncommon in Ireland compared to England. The reasons for this lie in chronology, landscape, and politics, and these form a major theme within the book, which looks at over 45 parks across Ireland. [Subject: History, Medieval Studies, Irish Studies, Archaeology]

Edited and introduced by A.A.M. Duncan. A! Fredome is a noble thing Fredome mays man to haiff liking Fredome all solace to man giffis He levys at es that frely levys These are some of the most famous lines in Scottish literature. They were written c.1375 by John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, as a celebration of the Age of Chivalry – an age of bravery, valour, and above all loyalty. Its twin heroes are Robert the Bruce and James Douglas, his faithful companion. The epic sweep and scale of the poem catch the full drama of Bruce’s life – from being pursued by dogs in Galloway to his great triumph at Bannockburn, from hunted fugitive surrounded by traitors to kingship of a free nation. The poem is one of the key sources for any life of Bruce and incorporates much information not found elsewhere. The language of the poem is easy to read and its vigour and imagery provide a marvellous insight into the medieval mind. This is the first accessible modern edition of The Bruce featuring a full historical introduction, a special commentary on Bannockburn, a facing page translation with extensive annotation and six detailed maps. This edition also includes the other great nationalist statement about the reign of Robert the Bruce, The Declaration of Arbroath. A.A.M. Duncan’s work on The Bruce represents the culmination of a life-long interest and this book, comprehensively revised in 2007, marks a radical reassessment of the history of Robert the Bruce as recounted in the poem which bears his name.

This pioneering study explores early medieval Frankish identity as a window into the formation of a distinct Western conception of ethnicity. Focusing on the turbulent and varied history of Frankish identity in Merovingian and Carolingian historiography, it offers a new basis for comparing the history of collective and ethnic identity in the Christian West with other contexts, especially the Islamic and Byzantine worlds. The tremendous political success of the Frankish kingdoms provided the medieval West with fundamental political, religious and social structures, including a change from the Roman perspective on ethnicity as the quality of the 'Other' to the Carolingian perception that a variety of Christian peoples were chosen by God to reign over the former Roman provinces. Interpreting identity as an open-ended process, Helmut Reimitz explores the role of Frankish identity in the multiple efforts through which societies tried to find order in the rapidly changing post-Roman world.

This book offers a perspective on Irish History from the late sixteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. Many of the chapters address, from national, regional and individual perspectives, the key events, institutions and processes that transformed the history of early modern Ireland. Others probe the nature of Anglo-Irish relations, Ireland's ambiguous constitutional position during these years and the problems inherent in running a multiple monarchy. Where appropriate, the volume adopts a wider comparative approach and casts fresh light on a range of historiographical debates, including the 'New British Histories', the nature of the 'General Crisis' and the question of Irish exceptionalism. Collectively, these essays challenge and complicate traditional paradigms of conquest and colonization. By examining the inconclusive and contradictory manner in which English and Scottish colonists established themselves in the island, it casts further light on all of its inhabitants during the early modern period.

Sacred and profane, public and private, emotive and ritualistic, internal and embodied, medieval weeping served as a culturally charged prism for a host of social, visual, cognitive, and linguistic performances. Crying in the Middle Ages addresses the place of tears in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultural discourses, providing a key resource for scholars interested in exploring medieval notions of emotion, gesture, and sensory experience in a variety of cultural contexts. Gertsman brings together essays that establish a series of conversations with one another, foregrounding essential questions about the different ways that crying was seen, heard, perceived, expressed, and transmitted throughout the Middle Ages. In acknowledging the porous nature of visual and verbal evidence, this collection foregrounds the necessity to read language, image, and experience together in order to envision the complex notions of medieval crying.

This authoritative survey of Britain in the later Middle Ages comprises 28 chapters written by leading figures in the field. Covers social, economic, political, religious, and cultural history in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales Provides a guide to the historical debates over the later Middle Ages Addresses questions at the leading edge of historical scholarship Each chapter includes suggestions for further reading

This book draws on the latest research across different disciplines to present the most up-to-date picture of English diet from the early Saxon period up to c.1540. It draws on a wide range of sources, from the historical records of medieval farms, abbeys, and households both great and small, to animal bones, human remains, and plants from archaeological sites.